These three steps will allow you to create a professional looking Linkedin site where you can now be excited to invite hundreds of relevant business owners, managers, other likely buyers of your products and services to connect with you. Not only will these new connections be more likely to buy from you after becoming connected on Linkedin, but they will also be more likely to suggest you to others they know both within the Linkedin community and those who aren't even web savvy.

So, where do we get that first 100 or so. We go back to our personal directories, both online and off. We continue to look up our closest friends, associates, classmates, professors, and others who we think are good prospects. We look them up on the people search as pointed out in the last post.

When we find them in the people search, the job is easy. We just invite them. In that they are listed on Linked in, and should know you personally, you should receive a very high percentage that accept your invitation. Keep this process going as long as you keep thinking of names or finding names in the people search. Allow this to marinate for a couple of weeks.

At this point you might want to take advantage of the automated system offered by Linkedin to find individuals you might have missed by having them search your email records. This is especially helpful in finding folks you may have contacted a while ago, but never added to your list. Merely go to the contacts tab on the Linkedin home page, access the menu and you will see add connections. Click on that, and the rest is obvious

Go to your Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Pinterest and other places where you have a following. Ask your followers to send you an invitation to Linkin. Add a link to your Linkedin site to your signature line on your email. If you send out email blasts to a customer list, ask those on your list to connect.

Remember that many of these potential customers and lead generators will be looking at all the cool stuff you just added to your profile.

If you do all of the above it is very likely that within a month or so, you should have well over 100 connections. Now it is time to jump to 500 or more. We'll go over that in the next blog post.